A Time For Caution
by Silawatsi
Summary: It was the most embarrassing capture he'd ever experienced. Well... maybe the second most. The most effective mind games are those we play by ourselves. Oneshot, Raphael-centric, In-Character situational humor.


It was the most embarrassing capture he'd ever experienced.

Well, second most. The Kraang had upped their game every time they'd fought, not to mention the schemes Karai got up to. That girl _really_ needed to find a different hobby.

Still, it was quite the feat to make it that far on Raphael's "Top Ten Worst Captive Experiences." After knocking over the wrong trashcan during a solo run topside, there was only a soft _snap_ of a tripwire to warn him of a combination of a trapdoor, a greased laundry chute and some knockout gas that _definitely_ wasn't picked up from the corner pharmacy.

When the red-masked ninja woke up, it was in a _dog kennel_ of all things. A flimsy wire dog kennel, pushed up against a corner in a bedroom that was nearly as messy as Mikey's.

Okay, so everything about this setup screamed _amatuer._ Raph doubted that he was even the intended target of the trap, going by the bowls of water and what looked to be _dog kibble_ in the corner of the cage he was squatting in. Even without his gear to pick the padlock holding the door closed - the latch was clearly broken - the mutant could easily escape by pulling the thin bars apart.

 _Is it a bad thing that I feel insulted by this low level of security?_

Giving into a frustrated huff, the ninja looked around his current "prison."

Every wall was covered in posters. The logos of rock bands, video games and TV shows announced themselves at every corner, and every shelf he could see was covered in either empty energy drink cans; or colorful anime memorabilia.

The only areas that weren't buried were an office desk - instead piled high with game systems and an impressively large computer screen - and an unmade twin sized bed. Dirty laundry covered every inch of the floor.

The padlock on the kennel door didn't prove an obstacle - Raph still had his ninja gear, so that's another point in favor of his captor not being any of his family's usual enemies.

 _Mikey would laugh his face off if he ever found out about this..._

Which he wouldn't. His brothers would _never_ find out about this - he would make sure of that. He was a freakin' _ninja_ , for crying out loud, he shouldn't have fallen for a trap that all evidence pointed to have been set up by an amatuer!

 _Okay, so step one: escape confinement is checked off. Now i just need to find a window with a fire escape..._

Plan made, Raphael strode towards the door with light steps. He would have liked to stomp with frustration at the situation, but Master Splinter had done a good job pounding caution into his head.

Just because his cage was pathetic, didn't necessarily mean his conspicuously absent captor wasn't capable of putting him back in it… violently.

 _I've been force-fed enough humble pie already, thank you very much!_

Raphael's surroundings didn't get any more impressive as he crept through the hallways outside the poster-plastered bedroom, peeking into any doors he came across. Bathroom, study, another bedroom… By all appearances, he was in an ordinary apartment.

His unease only multiplied.

In every single adventure Raphael and his brothers had been on, the moment they started getting comfortable with the status quo was the moment everything went pear-shaped. Anything "normal" was always just a front for something _especially_ freaky.

The image of April's supposed school-friend, Irma, appeared in Raph's mind unbidden. Previously human joints and torso had distended to reveal a mass of metal and circuitry piloted by a grotesque imposter; _cackling_ because _nowhere_ was safe and _everyone was going to die_ -

 _No!_

Raph stopped walking. Shook himself roughly, like a dog shedding water, and pinched the area between his eyes - where the bridge of his nose would have been.

This was no time to get wrapped up in the past. That incident was a potent lesson, to be sure; but there were no Irma-bots here. Just a collection of mundane surroundings, with the other shoe yet to drop.

 _If I never see another Irma-bot again, it'll be too soon._

After searching the entire place, all Raph had found was normal rooms, in a normal apartment.

A normal, _unoccupied_ apartment.

With all the windows too grimy to see out of, and stuck shut.

Dangit…

Raph's captivity just took on a much more sinister light.

 _Either this is a_ really _detailed prison cell - most likely in some underground Kraang base; or this is all a computer simulation and I'm actually laying on my shell, strapped down in a room full of wires that are all hooked up to my brain._

Either way, there's no way he was actually in an ordinary apartment. Neither Raph nor his family ever got _that_ lucky.

The sai-wielder looked around for any potential tools to escape with. The kitchen knives were dull, as though they had never been sharpened. Whoever had captured him must have intentionally dulled them down, so he couldn't use them to escape - but if the chemicals under the sink weren't just props, and were actually what the labels _said_ they were…

Raphael's arsenal was about to get a lot more explosive.

 _Anyone_ who spends enough time in Donnie's lab ends up learning how to make bombs - intentionally or otherwise.

Raph was only halfway through his first batch, when voices could be heard outside the only door he couldn't open - it was covered in latches too small for his thick, three fingered hands to work properly.

That could only mean one thing: guards were drawing close to what could only be the entrance to his bizarre jail cell.

"I'm telling you, man, it's _real!_ I've got it locked up in my bedroom and everything!" The first voice was nasally and whiny, but definitely male.

The second voice was deeper, raspy, and also male. "Yeah, _sure_. Just like that time we went camping, and you led everyone on a wild goose chase for _six hours_ because you thought you saw _real_ bigfeet."

"Big _foot._ "

"Whatever. You set that trap outside for a _racoon._ What, did you spray paint it green?"

"No!"

"So it _is_ a racoon."

The guards were right outside the door, now; the whiny one almost shouting compared to his companion's exasperated drawl.

"You're a douche, you know that? I'm about to show you a miracle of science, and all you do is _doubt._ It's real this time, honest! _Not_ another guy in a costume, I swear on my computer's hard drive."

Raph almost snorted out loud. Either the foot clan had gotten _really_ lax in their recruiting standards, or the Kraang had upgraded their robots to blend in better.

 _Please, for the love of pizza let it be the first one. If the Kraang figure out how to hide in plain sight…!_

Latches and deadbolts came rattling loose, one by one. Raphael would only have one shot before the alarm was raised...

That was all he needed.

The door creaked open, and the guards only got a glimpse of the apartment-lookalike jail cell before their vision disappeared in an explosion of purple smoke.

Their coughing fits saved their lives.

 _Bots don't cough._

The realization froze Raph in mid-movement - already behind the two guards, sai poised to stab into vulnerable necks. Before the guards had a chance to look around, their almost-assassin changed tactics at the last second and knocked them out with two firm nerve blows.

 _Plan A is officially trashed. Time for plan B: Improvise, while running like hell._

 _Sprint down the hallway, no time for stealth anymore. They'll only stay down for a few minutes._

 _Yes! Open window!_

 _FREEDOM!_

 _Wait… what?_

Was that _it?_ No explosions, no gunfire? Not even that blaring, annoyingly repetitive "intruder alert" alarm that never failed to make him want to punch somebody in the face?

Raph sprinted over a few more blocks of rooftop, just to be safe; before turning around to face the site of his capture.

It wasn't a Kraang facility.

It wasn't one of Shredder's, either.

Well… _that_ was anticlimactic.

 _I really_ was _in an ordinary apartment._

The building was plain - one he could have passed on any other night, and never given it a second thought. Its dull red bricks were slathered in graffiti wherever delinquent hands could reach, and from his current vantage point Raph could see the trash-packed ally where he fell through the trapdoor that got him into his initial predicament.

The passegeway was still open, and and the overturned trashcan beside it rocked from side to side - a ringed tail poking out of the opening identifying the source of the movement.

 _Paranoia's the mark of a good ninja, right?_

Even if it wasn't, that's what Raphael told himself as he turned his back on the mundane structure he had convinced himself not even ten minutes ago was an evil, secret base full of bad guys.

If his brothers ever asked, he was captured by Foot-Bots.

Foot-bots who had even more posters of _Space Heroes_ on their walls than Leonardo.


End file.
